This single frame is taken from the 2004 film 'The Stepford Wives'. It has been greatly reduced in size from the original, in order to meet fair use guidelines.

Here we have a remote control, used to control what was originally a human, now just a glorified appliance. If the idea of a remote being used to control a human seems preposterous, remember GVS.

GVS, or galvanic vestibular stimulation to use it's full name, is a method of controlling and constraining natural balance and movement ranges by using two weak electrical fields, delivered just behind the earlobes to control a person?s vestibular system, control nexus for the twin senses of movement and balance.

One of the many functions of this remote is to control where a person walks, and GVS can do this.

When a weak DC current is delivered to the mastoid behind a person?s ear, their body responds by shifting their balance toward the anode. The stronger the current, the more powerful its pull. If it is strong enough, it not only throws them off balance but alters the course of their movement.

Four such units, clustered around both ears, with variable strength current would be enough to control a person's movement completely if they were tied to a remote device with directional controls. In fact, this has been done.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone used such a system in 2005, to demonstrate how to remotely steer a blindfolded person, using basically, a joystick, and GVS units built into a pair of headphones. The net result was something very much like some of the functions of this remote control.

For the remainder of the functions, remember that these humans have multiple neuroprosthetics both readers and stimulators implanted within their brains. Whilst far beyond our own level of science, it is not beyond the scope of believability that signals from the remote control are perfectly capable of reaching the central control computer for the array of implants, and ordering it to alter the signals of one of more of the stimulators, to change the electrical pattern of activity in the brain.

Link: The Stepford Wives: Index of Stills

Link: Dictionary: GVS

Link: Balance in the Blood not just the Ear

Link: Remote-Controlled Humans

Link: Repairing and Virtualising Balance in one Swoop

Link: Monkey Behavior Controlled through Brain Stimulation

Link: The Stepford Wives (2004): A Plot Overview

Link: Site Shop > The Stepford Wives (2004)